Here’s a practical example of the way that this phenomenon can affect the relationship between sales and marketing. The word “lead” is defined differently by different organizations. Sometimes, people will say that they have “hot leads” or “warm leads” without a clear definition of exactly what it is that makes a lead “hot” or “warm.” Some sales reps, for example, will collect the name of a business owner from the receptionist at the front desk and call that a “warm lead.” Others might not call a lead “warm” until they have indicated interest.

There’s nothing more frustrating than passing a hot lead to the sales team, only to find out two weeks later than no one ever followed up. This is what happens when sales and marketing teams are not working from the same playbook.

The solution to this specific problem is simple. Define a set of measurable criteria that will determine if a lead is “hot.” You might also use a numerical index to score new leads according to their likelihood of converting. This practice is known as “lead scoring.” For example, you might assign an index of 0 to 100, wherein 100 represents a closed sale and 0 represents a dead lead. You might assign a lead score of 50 points if the customer calls with an inquiry. You could then train customer service representatives to ask questions, adding or subtracting points based on their answers. This type of system is one way to create a common set of language.  Metrics and scoreboards are extremely useful partly because the meaning of a number does not change from one culture to another.

Not everything can be quantified, but the practice of managing both the sales and marketing teams from the same set of metrics will help to gradually shift the way people communicate over time. Scoring systems can be implemented for nearly any process. For example, new recruits to the team could be scored during interviews based on measurable responses. But for scoring systems to work effectively, they need to be based on objective measurements, not scales of 1 to 10 based on how people feel. In other words, the same number has to mean the same thing, regardless of who took the measurement.

Metrics aside, the assimilation of the sales subculture and the marketing subculture into one larger culture are necessary if the two teams are to truly march to the same tune. You can’t accomplish this with a three-day off-site intensive or a one-week training program. This assimilation can only happen gradually, one day at a time. The practice of jointly involving sales and marketing team members in decisions that historically have been made by one team alone will make a difference. For example, the next time your marketing team designs a new flier, see what happens if you ask for input from the sales team. Invite your sales reps to bring a member of the marketing team along the next time they call on a prospect.

The process of getting marketing to walk lock-step with sales is easier said than done, but it’s absolutely essential to the health of any enterprise.

Challenge: what could you start doing today that would help your sales and marketing teams begin to operate more cohesively? How could you capture greater revenue opportunities by creating a sales and marketing super-team?

Don’t assume that collaborative selling is merely the evolution of consultative selling. You would be mistaken. In a consultative selling relationship, sales professionals offer value, steer dialogue and uncover issues that could impede progress. In collaborative selling, sales professionals are highly involved in the interworkings of the clients’ businesses. Collaborative selling demands that we work lock-step with a variety of people within the companies were we collaborate. Selling collaboratively is not for the faint at heart. It’s not for the sales professionals who are happy to close the deal. Collaborative selling is for “sales rock stars”. If you don’t know whether you are a sales rock star or not, you probably aren’t, but that doesn’t mean you can’t be one . . . eventually.

If you’re interested in selling collaboratively, then take note, here’s 3 ways to jump start the journey.

1- Understand your clients’ industries. It’s not enough to understand the clients of your clients. Selling collaboratively means you dig deep into the industries of your clients and discover the nuances and trends that can impact how your clients might need to do business in the future.

2- Insert yourself into the infrastructure. Certainly not an easy feat, but one with amazing pay off potential. By inserting yourself into the infrastructure, you’ll have a voice, while maybe not a vote, but a voice. You will achieve the greatest of all sales rock star levels, the level of “influence”. When clients’ trust you and value your contribution to their company, you gain influence, which is invaluable in the collaborative selling relationship.

3- Build something together. That’s right! Offer up your most prized possession . . . your intellect. Help your clients expand their product lines, add to their suite of services or create something new altogether. Do it freely without regard to recognition or compensation. Do it because you can afford to be liberal with your ideals. Why this level of generosity? Because there is nothing more telling about whose interests you are looking out for (yours or theirs) then helping your clients be more profitable.

In my Breakthrough Advantage™ system for business owners, I share three “magical” questions that are essential in paving the road for selling collaboratively. Here’s one of three questions, “What’s working but could be better?” While you might not believe this question has magic when you say it to yourself, when you say it to a client, it opens a gate that no other question can.

In collaborative selling, asking a potent question like this means two things: 1- Clients trust you enough to fully (not half-heartedly) answer you and 2- You are sharp enough to listen for the opportunities cleverly disguised as problems. For in those moments of asking and answering and listening and speaking, sales rock stars know that the seeds of collaborative selling are hiding and the chance to be the catalyst of opportunity making grows.

The decision is yours, you can choose to simply sell and do alright by your clients, or you can sell collaboratively and make a difference in a way you never thought possible.

Organizations with Industrial Age mindsets are accustomed to managing their brands the old way: by exercising iron-fisted control over the brand message. When markets were less volatile and more predictable, adding permanent full-time employees was the most common way to grow a business.

Under the old model, employees designed their families’ lives to put the needs of the business first. People were proud to wear their employer’s logo on their shirts. People’s employers became part of their social identities. It was inevitable for a company’s values to take root in the DNA of its employees. It was possible to create an environment that would immerse team members in the language of one brand. By drilling daily routines into people over time, brands had the power to indelibly shape people’s thinking.

Fast-forward to 2011. Getting everyone on the same “brand page” is a constant challenge. People no longer attach personal significance to their jobs. Even full-time hires are more likely to think of an employer as a stepping stone than a career. With the advent of telecommuting, virtual offices, job sharing, and part-time executives, the culture has grown radically different.

When outsourcing enters the picture, the complexity thickens. How can a company instill its brand values into an outside vendor? How do you ensure that another company operates with the same commitment to quality that has made your company a success? How can you accomplish this when the vendor is 1,000 miles away from your office (or on the other side of the planet)? Furthermore, your outsourcing partners face the same high-turnover environment that your company does. It’s difficult enough for them to manage their own brands, let alone assimilate yours.

If your branding strategy depends on your ability to control the message, you have a big problem on your hands. However, there is hope. Maintaining brand integrity without control simply requires a willingness to a adopt a different type of belief. Brands that recognize and embrace the latent opportunity in this challenge are prospering and growing.

The biggest hurdle to overcome is this: learning to encourage and celebrate individual contributions without bastardizing brand equity. When people have the experience of being heard, they take a greater personal interest in the brand. When people are ignored, they become stubborn. This leads to dysfunctional behavior which, left unchecked, can poison your brand name like a cancer. Companies that listen, on the other hand, cannot help but to make allies. People quickly fall in love with the dream behind the brand. They take it on as their dream.

Starbucks, for example, has developed a web site just for listening to people’s ideas. By making a practice of listening, they have created a culture where the employees build personal relationships with the customers. They scaled up their business at record-breaking rates without compromising their values. Consider also how Apple built a culture of innovation. They accomplished this by listening.

Are you struggling in vain to maintain a stranglehold over your brand message? If so, here’s a challenge for you. Ask yourself: what have your people been trying to tell you? If you don’t know, you have your work cut out for you. What new practices could your organization put in place to give its people the experience of having their voices fully heard?

While demographics can still play a role in segmenting your market, they are far less reliable predictors of purchasing behavior than before. Society has redefined who “John Doe” is, how he lives, and what’s important to him. There is no “average” American. In today’s self-absorbed culture, no one wants to be average. John Doe wants to be different. John Doe wants to stand out from the crowd. John Doe doesn’t want to be John Doe. What are the marketing implications of this shift?

Segmentation is more critical than ever. The science of identifying profitable market segments not only requires the mastery of more sophisticated tools and techniques, but it also requires adopting a new paradigm. You can no longer structure your market research around questions such as “what large group of people will steadily buy my products for the next ten years?” Market segments appear quickly, and they sometimes disappear the same way.

In today’s market, great marketing is about watching the radar screen and keeping your organization prepared for an ideal market segment to appear on short notice. Easier said than done? Of course. But it’s doable for companies who are willing to step up to the plate. The key to tapping this opportunity: mastery of hyper-segmentation.

The internet has made it easier than ever to reach groups of people based on individual choices they have made. This is essentially why opt-in e-mail campaigns work. It’s also why search-based advertising services like Google AdWords work. Facebook’s ad platform took things a step farther, allowing advertisers to display messages selectively based on social factors. These technologies work primarily because they allow skilled marketer to identify small, fast-moving niche segments before anyone else sees them.

Instead of designing products, services, and promotions for an imaginary John Doe, why not devise a marketing strategy that allows each market segment to voluntarily identify itself, one person at a time? You might be surprised when you learn who your market really is.

My challenge to you: what mechanisms and practices could your organization put in place that would allow hidden segments of the market to start revealing themselves to you?

You may think that you already took generational demographics into account when creating your marketing plan. You used Facebook and Twitter. You created YouTube ads and made sure they were less than 30 seconds long. You used 50% post-consumer recycled packaging materials. You made sure to use Millennial language; you even threw in an emoticon and the phrase “LOL.” Shouldn’t that have covered all of the bases? [I say sheepishly.]
While Millennials may appear to mimic Boomer behavior at times, they’re not driven by the same motives. If your firm has built its past successes by marketing to Baby Boomers, there’s one critical thing you need to understand: Boomers love a good story; whereas Millennials love a good hustle. Millennials don’t take things as seriously as Boomers.

The key to selling Boomers on your brand is to get them to fall in love with the story behind it. Baby Boomers are fiercely brand loyal. The products they buy become a part of their identities. Coca-Cola understood this principle and used it effectively when they incorporated Superman in their marketing materials. They successfully sold the notion that drinking Coca-Cola was the American way. To a Boomer, selecting a brand is making a sacred pact. Boomers will stick to an inferior brand for years, just because it’s their brand. When they change brands, it’s a big deal. If you take away what they love about your products, they will feel deeply offended – even betrayed.

Millennials are almost exactly the opposite.

Millennials will drop a brand like a hot potato if a better one comes along. They don’t value their behavior as disloyal; they see it as common sense. In fact, Millennials take pride in switching up. They like to stay ahead of the curve. Brands like Apple that appear to have won the loyalty of the Millennial generation have simply learned to consistently deliver value. It is possible, albeit difficult, to earn the genuine adoration and respect of the Millennials. Understand, though, that you will have to continue to earn it, because they will jump ship as soon as you fall short.

Note that Millennials aren’t cynical like their Generation-X elders; they are simply realistic. They have no interest in feel-good stories. If you try to convince Millennials that your business is committed to taking care of their families, they will take it as an insult to their intelligence. If you focus the content of your marketing messages on the addictive qualities of your products, Millennials will respond with a gleeful smile. They won’t admit it, but they love to be sold. Millennials prefer short, direct conversations, and they find small-talk annoying. They will most often respond to marketing messages with a get-right-down-to-business feel. This same kind of message may be off-putting or even offensive to a Boomer.

Consider the case of Rovio, creator of the Angry Birds video game. You can download their game to your smart phone for free. You don’t pay for anything until you’re hooked. It’s classic crack-dealer marketing at its best. Rovio has made a fortune selling video game upgrades primarily to Millennials, because they understand precisely how the Millennial mind works. Millennials “hustle” their friends, usually by saying, “This is addictive!” Coming from a friend, that line is virtually guaranteed to perk the ears of a Millennial. Boomers, on the other hand, share products with their friends by telling heartwarming stories.

You can no longer build a brand on the greatness of a few individuals and ride the coattails of their legends for decades. Millennials don’t have that kind of attention span. If you want to win the hearts of Millennials, you have to start from scratch and win their hearts anew every day. If the Millennials had a mantra, it might be “What have you done for me in the last ten minutes?”

Challenge question: What would happen if you lost all of your Baby Boomer customers and had to rely solely on Millennials for future business? Is your organization capable of embracing the Millennial mindset? If not, what are you going to do about it? After all, the Boomers aren’t going to be around forever.

The market takes time to catch on to new technologies, particularly when those technologies require behavioral changes, but there is a deeper issue here. The majority of QR codes are not used strategically, and therefore fail to deliver consistent results. When QR codes were brand new, people scanned them just because it was “cool” to do so. Predictably, that didn’t last. For this reason, marketers less familiar with the true benefits of QR codes might draw the erroneous conclusion that this technology is nothing more than a short-lived “phase.”

To make QR codes work, you need to design them into your campaign during the early stages. Instead of thinking only about where to place a QR code, think about how you will use the data you collect from user responses and how you will measure the effectiveness of the campaign.

Here are four simple and effective ways to integrate QR codes into your existing marketing campaigns.

1. Affix QR codes on your promotional and branded items. This is especially effective if your company uses trade show booths as part of its marketing strategy. For example, you might give away note pads with a QR code in the corner of each sheet or print a QR code on a branded water bottle.
2. Create a customized artistic QR code, using your brand colors. QR code scanners only care about contrast, not color, so you can easily make your QR code unique and memorable to humans as well as machines. You can also embed a QR code into a modified version of your company’s logo.
3. Offer an incentive for scanning the QR code with a call-to-action. For example, you could include the text, “Scan here to receive exclusive deals.”
4. Build intrinsic utility into the QR code itself. For example, real estate signs commonly allow passersby to instantly access detailed listing information by scanning QR codes. Recipe books with QR codes make it convenient for a user to instantly transfer the information into a phone. By making information available in a super-convenient package, you can increase your response rate considerably.

We have all driven past a billboard or seen a magazine ad that briefly piqued our curiosity. We all know how easy it is to forget these things. The principal value of QR codes lies in the fact that they make it easy for people to engage with you when they want to. You relieve them of the need to remember to do something later. Initially-interested customers, left to their own devices, will likely never remember to think about your ad again.

Challenge question: Ask yourself how you could make your printed marketing materials “stickier.” In what other ways could QR codes make it easier for your market to respond to you?

“Marketing is the activity, set of institutions, and processes for creating, communicating, delivering, and exchanging offerings that have value for customers, clients, partners, and society at large.”

That’s not working for me. Is it working for you? I show business owners that marketing is as simple as “Creating awareness, interest, attraction and demand for the products and/or services you sell.” Doesn’t that just make sense? In this simplistic definition, it’s easier to see the real relationship between marketing and sales.

Let’s take a look at 3 key ways marketing could take clues from sales to add more value and create more impact to what’s wildly important to the growth of the business.

Measure against only what is important
In sales, this is very straightforward. Most sales managers hold their reps accountable for a few core metrics, the number of appointments they set, the number of sales they close and the volume of new or repeat business they generate. In sales, you can’t fake it for long because numbers don’t lie.

Taking cues from sales, marketing could easily measure:
• Number of inquiries and the timeline from inquiry to customer
• Number of visitors to your website, what those visitors did (or didn’t) do on the website and how long they stayed on the website
• Number of new subscribers to your e-mail list and what the driver was to get them on the list

I’m not suggesting that everyone will use these specific metrics. They may or may not be relevant, to your type of business. What I am pressing upon you is the need to make marketing measurable and qualify what the importance of the metric is.

Have a process to measure marketing’s impact
Sales managers follow specific and documented procedures each day at the close of business. They are continually accountable for the measurable performance of their organizations. Sales reps are often required to report their activity and results multiple times throughout the course of a day. Sales reporting tools are designed to make it easy to spot performance bottlenecks at all levels.

You must include a meaningful and measurable metric into your marketing campaigns from day one. Perhaps you’ve heard of the joke, “Half of my marketing is working, but I don’t know which half.” There is no excuse for this. If you can’t measure and track a given marketing strategy, you shouldn’t be using it.

Know when to shut up (and let the customer speak)
Have you ever seen “business card ninjas” at networking events who were more interested in talking about themselves than anything else? Competent sales professionals understand that sales is more about listening than talking. Marketing is the same way. Unfortunately, that’s something many business owners don’t understand. Contrary to popular belief, marketing is not about littering the town with your fliers. Marketing is not making as much noise as possible about your products and services. Marketing is about staying in tune with what people want and need. You can’t do that without listening.

My challenge to you: what action can you take this week that will teach you something you didn’t know about your customers? I’m not talking about customer satisfaction surveys. I’m talking about real engagement with live people.

I’m really just scratching the surface in this post, but here’s the take-away. Marketing could learn a lot from sales – they really aren’t worlds apart, like many might suggest. I’ve learned after a decade of managing both the “pipeline and the funnel” that in the end the best sales people are often incredible marketers, but incredible marketers often know nothing about sales.

Does this really work, or is the idea too good to be true?

The “daily deals” e-mail strategy has shown promise, but it also has some serious flaws, as Groupon has learned. Deep discounts tend to attract penny-pinching customers who are simply looking for a deal. As many marketers know, cheapskate customers are the worst. They complain the loudest, and they make the most unreasonable demands. A number of restaurants have experimented with Groupon, only to find that it brought in one-time customers who tipped poorly, burned out their staff, and never came back. This sort of customer is least likely to appreciate what makes you special. On the flip side, some customers have bought Groupons, only to find that the businesses had closed up shop and disappeared.

Since Groupon’s IPO stalled out, questions have surfaced about the long-term viability of its business model. Its accounting practices raised red flags with the SEC, and its operating losses have swelled while revenues have declined.

Does this mean that daily deals are dead?

Here’s my take on things. First and foremost, giving discounts on mediocre products is a great way to lose money. As a marketing strategy, there are times when deep discounting makes a lot of sense. For example, it might make sense for an office equipment dealer to break even on the sale of a copying machine, knowing that the downstream revenue from service, toner cartridges, and referral business will make it worthwhile. It only makes sense when you have a truly remarkable business and you just need a bit more exposure.

If you’re considering a daily deal, ask yourself this key question. How will you make sure that your offering attracts only the right customers? Good marketing should repel the wrong people as consistently as it attracts the right ones. How could you offer a discount that would only appeal to people who are likely to recognize the value that you offer? For example, if you charge twice as much as your competition and offer 50% off, the deal-seekers will pass you by in favor of someone cheaper. Your past customers, who have always been thrilled with your service, will see the deal and snap it right up.

However, for this scenario to work, you must provide a truly outstanding service that completely blows away the competition. You also must create an offering to appeal to a highly focused segment, and you will need a strategy to retain the customers you get. How will you convert one-time customers into repeat customers? What reason will you give them to keep coming back after the crazy deal has expired and prices have returned to normal? Tip-off: do you have a reliable way to convert one-time customers into repeat customers now? If not, you might want to start there.

The bottom line: marketing starts with knowing, wowing and keeping your best customers. It comes down to how you serve them. If your numbers don’t look the way you want them to, you will probably need to start by elevating the quality of what you provide. Groupon isn’t going to give you a shortcut around this, and neither is anyone else.

Challenge: Are you willing to stop selling products and services that are less than amazing? Are you willing to focus 100% of your company’s resources serving only the markets where it can be the best? Are you willing to rise to the top of your game and be the kind of company that people talk about? If so, a daily deal timed and executed skillfully just might give you an extra edge. But until you can honestly answer “yes” to the questions I just asked, daily deals will make no real difference.

So what is a business professional to do when he/she wants to become a media darling and scoop up some well-deserved publicity? Answering that question has more to do with what not to do. Being relevant to the media requires a high level of consistency and tenacity; something that many people struggle to maintain. However, if you’re the type that likes to see things to the end, you’ll find these tips helpful as you navigate the media maze.

Don’t Get Caught Making These 5 Media Missteps:

#1 – Shopping your news to every media outlet.
It’s not uncommon for a reporter to ask you where else have you submitted your news story, if the reporter is mildly interested. If you have simply “shopped” your story to any and every available media outlet, you are not doing yourself any favors. Reporters are people. They want to feel like they are working a fresh story, not a story that has been tossed around (and sometimes tossed over) by other media sources.

#2 – Trying to disguise a sales pitch or ad as news.
Media folks are pretty savvy. They’ve seen a lot of things and they’ll quickly see through your cleverly disguised sales pitch. Do yourself a favor and stick to the story without the glossy embellishments. If a reporter wants more information, he/she will ask for it and most likely schedule a time for an interview.

#3 – Tooting your own horn. Loudly.
A little humility goes a long way, even in the eye of the media. Reporters are easily turned off by boastful rants and self-serving hyperbole. It is absolutely acceptable to share awards and achievements if they are relevant to the story concept, but a laundry list of “look how great I am” items is sure to get your story intentionally overlooked.

#4 – Ignoring lesser known media outlets.
We all want to be media darlings (Okay, most of us anyway). Who wouldn’t want to make the front cover of an industry publication, or be the featured expert on a major network’s special segment? On the road to national publicity, don’t discount the local media outlets and their corresponding social platforms. Your impetus to national media just might come via a small, hometown newspaper that no one has ever heard of. Before you ask . . . yes, it happens.

#5 – Believing that a 1 time mention is all that you need.
Eileen Batson, a Raleigh, NC PR professional who provides publicity services for speakers, authors and entrepreneurs, and I, often marvel at the thinking many business professionals have when it comes to publicity. Despite how often we tell people that a one-time mention will not catapult their business to national stardom, people want to cleave to that expectation. I’m not saying that it can’t happen. I’m merely saying that it does not normally happen that way. For example, a Florida-based gift basket company got mentions through local and regional media fairly regularly. It wasn’t until a feature in the Wall Street Journal that she saw a significant boost in sales. When interviewed about her seemingly overnight success, she chuckled and said “It took three years to become that.”

Navigating the media maze for well-deserved publicity can be a rewarding experience and give your business or brand a boost that few other vehicles can offer. Respect the media professionals, rather local or national, and understand that it is their role to share stories and information that is relevant to their audience. The role of the media is not to make you a star, despite the fact that in many cases the impact can do just that. At the end of day, the simple truth is that the media owes you nothing and they make no apology for that fact.

Our offline reputation is typically comprised of the relationships we’ve built with people. Whether friends, colleagues, contacts or customers, we’ve put time and energy into cultivating relationships that allow people to feel good about being in association with us. In fact, it’s refreshing to meet someone who, upon your introducing yourself, says immediately, “I’ve heard such great things about you.” We all want that comforting feeling.

The very same people who are framing your reputation offline are also doing it online, whether you know it or not. That’s right! They are mentioning your name in online conversations. They are tagging you in blog posts and pictures. They are referencing you in articles and videos. In fact, your online reputation is equally as important as your offline one. So . . . how do you manage your overall reputation when you don’t know it’s happening in the background and you can’t control it? That’s easy . . . software!

Reputation monitoring tools are software programs that proactively find out information about you and who’s saying it. Don’t you want to know what is being said about you, who’s saying it and why? Your reputation has social and professional equity. It lingers long after you’ve left a job, a community, a group, a church, even a marriage. In fact, I would argue that your reputation, whether online or offline, is your most valuable piece of collateral. Protect it at all cost.

While I don’t have a favorite, there are several reputation monitoring tools to choose from with varying degrees of complexity. For example, on the simple end, Google Alerts will email you notifications when your word alert criteria is matched. Social Mention works similarly. Neither of these programs offer deep analytics. I’d say they function more like “listening” tools. Think of listening tools as a third ear that allows you to hear what’s being said about you online.

On the comprehensive side, there are tons of options. Meltwater, a very sophisticated system with analytics that can “learn” if mentions of you are “good”, “bad” or “neutral”. Another choice is Trackr, which offers robust analytics and detailed reporting.

The point is not to overwhelm you with software choices. The point is to stress that evolving technologies have blurred the lines between living, working and playing. Our fingertip ability to find out hundreds of pieces of information about each other in mere seconds means monitoring and managing your online reputation is just as important as the handshake relationships that we’ve cultivated over the years.

Because of my own reputation monitoring, I’ve discovered I was nominated for two achievements, mentioned in several blogs, tagged in scores of photos, quoted in an article and, if you can believe it, had a meeting – which I apparently forgot to put on my calendar. Thank goodness the woman I was meeting was so excited to meet with me that she chatted about the meeting online with a friend.

If your reputation is worth anything to you, than the notion that people will talk about you whether you are listening to them or not should make you just uncomfortable enough to take your online reputation as seriously as the one you’ve worked so hard to create offline.